The Clever Sweet Potato Trick We Wish We’d Known About Sooner

Sweet potatoes are one of our favorite veggies year-round, but they rise to the top of the list when fall rolls around. The tasty tuber can swing sweet or savory, depending on the recipe and they're packed with good-for-you stuff , like fiber and Vitamin A. We like to roast them whole or in cubes, mash them with butter or turn them into a sweet potato casserole or sweet potato pie once Thanksgiving comes around.

But one issue we run into with sweet potatoes is that they can take a while to cook and can be tricky to cut up for our favorite dishes. But thanks to cook and TV host @kelseynixon we found a new way to cook our sweet potatoes that's going to save us a ton of time.

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The Quickest Way to Roast Sweet Potatoes

For the quickest, easiest sweet potatoes, Nixon recommends slicing the veggie in half before roasting. You just wash them, halve them lengthwise, coat them with olive oil, salt and pepper (on both sides) and lay the halves cut-side down on a baking sheet. Place them in the oven at 425 degrees and you'll have perfectly roasted sweet potatoes in 30 minutes.

It can often take up to an hour to bake a sweet potato or a white potato in the oven, so this method saves a lot of time. The other great thing about this method is that, as it cooks, the cut side of the sweet potato gets browned and caramelized thanks to the hot baking sheet. That caramelization translates to a deep sweet potato flavor.

You can load up the sweet potato halves, baked potato style, scoop out the flesh and mash it or transfer the flesh to a blender and whip it into a puree for sweet potato casserole or sweet potato pie. This tip is going to come in handy immediately, but we're definitely going to use it next month when Thanksgiving is finally upon us.

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